Why has the Chapel Hill murder not had more attention?
Three Muslim students have been shot dead in what appears to be a religiously motivated terrorist attack by a self-described “anti-theist.”
The victims, 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat, his 21-year-old wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were murdered at their home on Tuesday night in Chapel Hill, a quiet town in North Carolina.
Their neighbour, Craig Stephen Hicks, has been arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, after reportedly handing himself in to police.
Hicks, a white 46-year-old, described himself as a supporter of “Atheists for Equality”, according to his Facebook page, as well as a fan of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. He regularly posted condeming all religions.
As hours went by with mainstream US news outlets failing to cover the attack, social media users expressed outrage at what the New Statesman called "the media's refusal to recognise the murder of three innocent Muslims by a white man as a terrorist attack."
The New Statesman is open to question themselves for describing this as a "racially motivated" attack, which, frankly, is deliberately ignoring or distorting the apparent motive.
Hicks has yet to be convicted so we should not make any assumptions about his guilt, but the evidence quoted by the New Statesman themselves at
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/chapel-hill-shooting-white-male-atheist-murders-three-muslim-students
strongly suggests that if he is guilty, he murdered these innocent people not because the colour of his skin is different but because they believe in God and he detests that belief.
Murdering someone because you have different beliefs about God, including not believing in God at all, is equally wrong whatever the circumstances.
It is wrong whether you are a catholic murdering protestants or vice versa, a Muslim murdering Jews or vice versa, a Sunni Muslim murdering Shia Muslims or vice versa, a religious believer murdering atheists or an atheist murdering believers.
Many people of all views about religion - and yes, this most definitely does include atheists - have wrongly convinced themselves that they are the good guys who are only ever the victims of sectarian murder and that this is something that is a problem caused only for people of some other belief system. Everyone who thinks that is sadly mistaken.
People have been murdered in the name of every religious position of whose existence I am aware including atheism (millions of religious believers have been murdered and in some cases still are being, by atheist regimes in places like Soviet Russia, China, etc.)
I think almost every persuasion needs to be a bit more vocal in condemning all forms of religious persecution including those in both directions between believers and non-believers.
The victims, 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat, his 21-year-old wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were murdered at their home on Tuesday night in Chapel Hill, a quiet town in North Carolina.
Their neighbour, Craig Stephen Hicks, has been arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder, after reportedly handing himself in to police.
Hicks, a white 46-year-old, described himself as a supporter of “Atheists for Equality”, according to his Facebook page, as well as a fan of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion. He regularly posted condeming all religions.
As hours went by with mainstream US news outlets failing to cover the attack, social media users expressed outrage at what the New Statesman called "the media's refusal to recognise the murder of three innocent Muslims by a white man as a terrorist attack."
The New Statesman is open to question themselves for describing this as a "racially motivated" attack, which, frankly, is deliberately ignoring or distorting the apparent motive.
Hicks has yet to be convicted so we should not make any assumptions about his guilt, but the evidence quoted by the New Statesman themselves at
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/02/chapel-hill-shooting-white-male-atheist-murders-three-muslim-students
strongly suggests that if he is guilty, he murdered these innocent people not because the colour of his skin is different but because they believe in God and he detests that belief.
Murdering someone because you have different beliefs about God, including not believing in God at all, is equally wrong whatever the circumstances.
It is wrong whether you are a catholic murdering protestants or vice versa, a Muslim murdering Jews or vice versa, a Sunni Muslim murdering Shia Muslims or vice versa, a religious believer murdering atheists or an atheist murdering believers.
Many people of all views about religion - and yes, this most definitely does include atheists - have wrongly convinced themselves that they are the good guys who are only ever the victims of sectarian murder and that this is something that is a problem caused only for people of some other belief system. Everyone who thinks that is sadly mistaken.
People have been murdered in the name of every religious position of whose existence I am aware including atheism (millions of religious believers have been murdered and in some cases still are being, by atheist regimes in places like Soviet Russia, China, etc.)
I think almost every persuasion needs to be a bit more vocal in condemning all forms of religious persecution including those in both directions between believers and non-believers.
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